S.A.  Black

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420 books | 1,798 friends


S.A. Black

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in The United States
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February 2025


S. A. BLACK is an American writer, technologist, and advertising executive. Black is the author of the novel Target Pool, a thriller with a plot centered around the surveillance economy. A lifelong writer and the author of numerous short stories, Black has also written extensive nonfiction work about advertising and technology, published in the national and advertising trade press. Black is a lover of the outdoors, travel, cooking, and a dedicated reader.

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S.A. Black Fiction's power lies in its ability to transport us. But many of my favorite reads describe worlds far too harsh to actually want to visit: the grim, …moreFiction's power lies in its ability to transport us. But many of my favorite reads describe worlds far too harsh to actually want to visit: the grim, beautiful and bullet-scarred landscapes of Cormac McCarthy, for example. Or the nightmare worlds of Stephen King. Would I want to be the protagonist of the Time Traveler's Wife, thrust naked into random times and places? I might pass, as much as I love the book and its premise.

Books I read at a young age occupy a disproportionate share of the places I'd actually visit if I could. The depopulated world of The Stand. The lonely wildernesses of My Side of the Mountain or Hatchet. The tropical islands of Lord of the Flies or Robinson Crusoe. The jungles of The Mosquito Coast. For favorite stories set long ago, like The Pillars of the Earth or The Count of Monte Christo, I'll take the truly fictional version, please, where the lack of sanitation or antibiotics wouldn't offend my senses or health.

But without the bad guys, pestilence, or evil spirits, what kind of story would you have to tell when you got back?(less)
S.A. Black It's September as I'm writing this, so I'm going to flip this and tell you about a few books I enjoyed reading over the spring and summer this year.

I …more
It's September as I'm writing this, so I'm going to flip this and tell you about a few books I enjoyed reading over the spring and summer this year.

I want to put in a plug for A Good Family: a novel by A. H. Kim. What I love about Kim's book is its taut, consistent pacing and gripping whodunit drama. Plus, like me, she came to fiction later in life.

I was to be completely absorbed by Joan Didion's final two books, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights. I'm new to reading her, but someone at work gave me these and I was hooked. She crafts such compelling prose with vivid tensions between tragedy and hope, self-awareness and self-indulgence, her past and her present.(less)
Average rating: 4.0 · 14 ratings · 10 reviews · 1 distinct workSimilar authors
Target Pool

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 14 ratings3 editions
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Recent Reads: The City We Became and The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin

New York is under attack from a mysterious, interdimensional force, and in response, each of its boroughs manifests in a human avatar who gradually awakens to their new identity and mission to protect the city they love. This duology moves deftly between layers of identity, meaning and space to tell an irreverent and richly charactered tale as the five boroughs and the city itself fight the invade Read more of this blog post »
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Published on December 07, 2025 08:12 Tags: books, n-k-jemisin, reading
Three Men in a Boat
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S.A.’s Recent Updates

S.A. Black wrote a new blog post

Recent Reads: The City We Became and The World We Make by N. K. Jemisin

New York is under attack from a mysterious, interdimensional force, and in response, each of its boroughs manifests in a human avatar who gradually aw Read more of this blog post »
53792 87303
Notes from Star to Star by Brian J. Dolan
"Notes from Star to Star
Sci-Fi
Brian Dolan
⭐️⭐️⭐️

• ꜱᴘᴀᴄᴇ • ꜰɪʀꜱᴛ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀᴄᴛ • ᴀᴍɴᴇꜱɪᴀ •

This book had an interesting premise but it felt like a lot of filler was used, for example every flavour of tea the FMC was drinking was described in detail, how each " Read more of this review »
S.A. Black and 2 other people liked Bnz's review of Notes from Star to Star:
Notes from Star to Star by Brian J. Dolan
"This novella starts with the almost over-exploited device of an astronaut finding themselves alone in a starship, with little or no memory of how they came into the situation, where they are going or where the others are. The "discovery" process here" Read more of this review »
S.A. Black and 2 other people liked Lynxie's review of Notes from Star to Star:
Notes from Star to Star by Brian J. Dolan
"This story feels like it was born from a mind that really got into the semi-recent spate of science fiction space exploration movies (Interstellar, The Martian, Gravity etc).

When you enter into a story where you have a single character isolated on a" Read more of this review »
S.A. Black has read
Strange Weather by Joe Hill
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S.A. Black has read
The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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S.A. Black has read
The Devil & Sherlock Holmes by David Grann
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S.A. Black has read
Beyond the Sea by Paul    Lynch
Beyond the Sea
by Paul Lynch (Goodreads Author)
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Topics Mentioning This Author

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LOTSA SPELL CHALL...: June 2025 - Celebrating 250 Years of Jane Austen / JANE BENNET 65 21 Sep 25, 2025 08:18PM  
Brian J. Dolan
“You have travelled to the stars, set foot in new worlds, and shown that beauty is universal.”
Brian J. Dolan, Notes from Star to Star

Brian J. Dolan
“Earth. A blue dot suspended in space. With people and oceans and teeming cities, forests, and plains, ice at the poles on a cold year, wild and domestic animals, and some not nice stuff that wasn’t important at the moment with all the pleasant things to think about as her memory steadily, hopefully, came back.”
Brian J. Dolan, Notes from Star to Star

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